Sep 14, 2010

I know for a fact I am not alone in being shocked by the news of David Thompson's death. I feel like I've been punched and deflated.

David was truly one of the good guys. I don't know of a single person who had contact with him and didn't love him. He was an awesome book seller, he was a great book publisher and a champion of the genre of mystery.

But what David was more than anything else was a friend, to everyone who met him. For me he was a great straight man who always laughed at my jokes. He would calm me down if I was irritated or upset and he would make me laugh on a regular basis. David was also on of the most enthusiastic people I ever met and that is no exaggeration. Being in his vicinity was like being on the edge of a tornado and you just got sucked right up into whatever it was that was exciting him. He inspired me to be better than I am, kinder and more open minded. Knowing David honestly made me a better person.

Seeing David with McKenna was to believe in true love. The look on his face when he was with her made me know that there is truly good in this world.

As I type this i am feeling a lot of emotions, I am mad that he was taken from us, I am sad that my friend is gone and I am confused about why. The worst thing is I don't know what to do about filling the hole that is now in my heart.

I wish I could do something for his family to make this better, but there isn't anything. All I can do is try to be half the person David was and and to keep looking for the good in all things.

Sep 13, 2010

Nine years ago today my husband Jon got a panicked phone call from our friend Richard Katz. “Laura Lippman is signing tonight. Nobody’s going to come. You guys will, right?”Laura was touring her new book, IN A STRANGE CITY. In a world gone mad two days after 9/11 Laura Lippman did what she could by getting to a signing in the Midwest she knew wouldn’t be well attended. That evening she said to us, “The best thing we can do is try to keep living our lives”.

There were people at the signing, a total of six I believe. Laura glowed and engaged her audience like it was a room of hundreds. She talked of Poe and Baltimore, of her job as a reporter. She talked of how she’d always wanted to write an important novel but she was grateful to make her living as a writer. She spoke of supplementing her income as a waitress in her early years. She spoke of her Crime Fiction heroes and peers. After the signing we went for dinner. Italian. Calzones and pizza and lasagna. Laura had cheese ravioli. And there was wine, a lot of wine. There was talk of 9/11 too. Choices we all had to make.

In the nine years since that night, I’ve gotten to know Laura Lippman pretty well.I’d have to insert (full disclosure) on anything I wrote about her writing. Except; I don’t feel I do. The reason for this is simple, she has that rarest of gifts… when you start a book by Lippman you are immediately transported to a different world. As you read her words all thoughts of dishes and bills and THE JOB recede into a halcyon background. For whatever the page count, while reading, you belong to her.

My drum beating for I’D KNOW YOU ANYWHEREhas been muted. I’ve used the brushes rather than the sticks in a nod to those who draw these reviewing lines in the sand. I reviewed I’D KNOW YOU ANYWHERE for Crimespree. It was in a back and forth with Margery Flax of MWA on Facebookthat my feelings were most clearly represented.

Like myself, Margery got an ARC (advanced reading copy). Many people did. Laura has a publisher who believes in her and rejoices with her in every success. The reading of Laura’s latest book is one of those rarest of pleasures. Not only is it so engrossing you don’t even realize your own reality has temporarily been suspended, you cannot see everything that is being said with just one read. With Margery I shared the joy of reading I’D KNOW YOU ANYWHERE. Chapter by chapter, moment by moment.

The slow reveal to the truth of I’D KNOW YOU ANYWHERE is one of my greatest reading experiences, in this, the new millennium.

Laura has spoken of wanting to improve with every novel. She has a work ethic that could and should shame most. By writing every day, questioning her motives, her talents, her fallibilities; she is that rarest of writer. The writer who will get better with each finished work. Who will never write to meet deadline but write to present a new, a better story.

I have loved the person Laura Lippman for nine years now. The writer Laura Lippman is someone I know I will continue to love more with each and every book.She continues to blur the lines of a reality you know with one that by turns, you want to believe in and are afraid to look at.

I’D KNOW YOU ANYWHERE. Three weeks on the New York Times Best Seller List. If, by chance, you’ve wandered across this piece and haven’t read it yet, do. You will not be disappointed. If you can buy it, I recommend it highly. In these times, if you need to get it at your local library, that’s fine. Laura is a huge believer in libraries. Last week Craig Fergeson accused her of being a naughty Librarian.

We all have memories, shaded by the passing of time and the lore of legend that aren’t quite real. Some are downright false. If you’ve read Laura Lippman’s work in the last five years, you know she plays with this theme; repeatedly and well. It makes her someone to be celebrated, not because she’s larger than life but because her fiction represents life like no one else writing today. Below is that Crimespree Review. I’m much more interested in yours.

I’D KNOW YOU ANYWHERE

Eliza and her family have returned to the States after time spent in England. They are close enough to her childhood home for the children to see their grandparents regularly and far enough away to keep the past at a distance. Until the letter arrives…

I’D KNOW YOU ANYWHERE. Eliza has a secret. The secret is shared with only five people, her parents, her sister, the husband who’s made the world safe for her and the dictator of the note.

15 year old Elizabeth was kidnapped as she cut through the woods her parents forbade her to go through. Walter held her captive for months before the rescue.

About to die, Walter wants to apologize. He’s found an emissary to contact his former hostage. Lippman has found another way to tell a story.

Relatinga horrific past and a present day dilemma, Lippman tells the story of a serial killer and the victim who got away. As the two narratives advance, layers of morality are exposed and free will is questioned with the flow.

What makes I’D KNOW YOU ANYWHERE spectacular is the depth of Lippman’s concept for the book. Once again this author has risen the bar for herself and her contemporary novelists. Everything she’s written before was an exercise to write this novel. Memory is suspect. Only two can keep a secret.

Both the dialog and advancement of her characters from one page to the next make this a read best shared with the reader in print form. Present is the great sense of humor Lippman is known for and the depth of fear and loathing she’s taken us to before. The delivery is different. Riveting. New. I’D KNOW YOU ANYWHERE is an experience you’ll only share with yourself and the book. Sometimes a writer really can find the special blend that makes everything about their book too personal to communicate but so absorbing you’ll want to share it with everyone else who read’s it.

This is one of those books. To quoteHenry Higgins “I do believe she’s got it”.

Sep 7, 2010

Fall has come and that means it is time for another Cork O'Connor novel by the award-winning William Kent Krueger.

Kent launched VERMILION DRIFT, the tenth novel to feature Cork O'Connor, at Once Upon A Crime in Mpls.

Some nights, Corcoran O’Connor dreams his father’s death.William Kent Krueger’s gripping tale of suspense begins with a recurring nightmare, a gun, and a wound in the earth so deep and horrific that it has a name: Vermilion Drift. When the Department of Energy puts an underground iron mine on its short list of potential sites for storage of nuclear waste, a barrage of protest erupts in Tamarack County, Minnesota, and Cork is hired as a security consultant. Deep in the mine during his first day on the job, Cork stumbles across a secret room that contains the remains of six murder victims. Five appear to be nearly half a century old—connected to what the media once dubbed "The Vanishings," a series of unsolved disappearances in the summer of 1964, when Cork’s father was sheriff in Tamarack County. But the sixth has been dead less than a week. What’s worse, two of the bodies—including the most recent victim—were killed using Cork’s own gun, one handed down to him from his father. As Cork searches for answers, he must dig into his own past and that of his father, a well-respected man who harbored a ghastly truth. Time is running out, however. New threats surface, and unless Cork can unravel the tangled thread of clues quickly, more death is sure to come. Vermilion Drift is a powerful novel, filled with all the mystery and suspense for which Krueger has won so many awards. A poignant portrayal of the complexities of family life, it’s also a sobering reminder that even those closest to our hearts can house the darkest—and deadliest—of secrets.

Vermilion Drift (Normally I would just use the initials, but I would feel creepy refering to Kent's VD) has picked up strong reviews by Kirkus and Publisher's Weekly. And even if you don'take their word, there is the simple fact that this is Kent's eleventh book and each one has been damn entertaining.

Do yourself a favor and pick up a copy. Or if you have not read Kent's stuff, pick up all eleven today. Once you start, you won't be able to stop.

Sep 1, 2010

I was very excited when I opened my e-mail last week. Would you like to read an original short story from Charles Todd featuring Bess Crawford... Well ... yes.

For the next two weeks you can download THE GIRL ON THE BEACH for free. You should be able to find it through your favorite on-line retailer orhere on Amazon.

This is a gem of a story, it brought me back to the short stories of mystery's "golden years" with a decidedly contemporary twist. Bess is a nurse who's been on the front in WWI. Home in Great Britain she finds a dead body on a secluded beach....

For those who read last year's AN IMPARTIAL WITNESS, it's another piece of Crawford's life. Something to tide us over until the next book. If you've been a fan of the Todds' other series featuring Ian Rutledge this will wet your whistle.

Bess is an extremely independent young lady living in the years of WWI, almost the flip side to Rutledge, a man haunted by his war experience and using a series of coping mechanisms to allow him to function.